Pablo López Stymies the Astros to Tie Up the ALDS

If the Twins were supposed to be a speed bump on the Astros’ familiar path to the World Series, nobody sent them the message, as they got revenge for Game 1’s 6-4 loss with a convincing 6-2 victory that wasn’t even as close as the score. By winning Sunday, the Twins ensure that we’ll finally have at least one series this postseason that isn’t a sweep as the teams head to Target Field for Game 3.

While nearly everyone on the Twins contributed in Game 2, I don’t think many people will disagree with me when I say that this was Pablo López’s game. While he held the Blue Jays to one run in his Wild Card start, I wouldn’t call that outing a dominating performance. This one was. Against the Astros, a better offense than the Jays, López went seven strong innings, striking out seven and allowing six hits. Bill James’ Game Scores might not be a whiz-bang Statcast measure, but I think they do a great job of giving a general feel of starts from a historical, fan perspective, and López’s Game Score ranks very high among Twins’ postseason outings since the Senators moved to Minnesota:

What’s especially interesting about López’s start, other than it being really awesome, was how much he flipped the script. After learning a sweeper this spring, it became a key part of his repertoire as the season went on. That can hardly be surprising given how effective he was with it this season, holding batters to a sub-Mendoza line batting average and keeping their slugging percentage under .300, which sadly does not have a catchy name. Down the stretch, the pitch was his bread-and-butter; he threw nearly as many sweepers in September as fastballs (26% vs. 30%). Against the Jays, he threw 30 of them in 93 pitches. In more pitches on Sunday, he only offered 16 of them to the Astros.

López basically changed the menu against Houston, trading in his bread-and-butter for an extra-large piece of steak. Rather than deception, he went after the Astros, who seemed curiously passive against him all night. All his pitches were 1-2 mph faster than his seasonal averages with slightly reduced vertical movement (every pitch showed at least two inches of difference). Houston’s lineup, despite the dangerous hitters in the top half, mostly just watched their demise pass them by, only swinging at 52% of López’s in-zone pitches; López is at 70% for his career and has never had a game in which opponents swung less often at his in-zone offerings. The result was seven strikeouts on just 12 whiffs the entire game, against 22 called strikes. To put that into context, of the 251 games in 2023 in which a pitcher struck out seven batters, only 17 featured fewer swings-and-misses. Through six, López had only notched eight whiffs and six strikeouts, but the Astros appeared to notice both the scoreboard and the inning in their final chances against the Twins starter.

What the Astros hit, they hit ineffectively. The average exit velocity against López was a mere 78.5 mph; his October season-finisher against the Brewers last year was his only other career start to feature weaker opponent contact. The xBA against López only estimated five hits (4.95, to be exact), so Houston actually experienced a bit of fortune with their seven (ultimately futile) hits against him.

López going power pitcher may have been Houston’s doom in Game 2, but every pitcher needs help from the offense — it’s not like you can allow negative runs. Minnesota did not leave López waiting for run support. Indeed, he threw his first pitch with a lead already on the scoreboard, thanks to a Carlos Correa double to drive in Jorge Polanco. That RBI double was the first of three hits for Correa on the night, while his three RBI (he added a two-run RBI single in the fifth as well) made up half of the Twins’ total. It also brings Correa’s number of multi-hit games this postseason to three, which no doubt takes away a lot of the sting of his rather pedestrian regular season campaign. Kyle Farmer’s two-run shot in the second inning gave López a comfortable cushion for the dinner cruise; Edouard Julien tacked on an RBI single in the seventh for good measure.

Framber Valdez no doubt provided an assist to the Twins. His command was spotty all night and after throwing three curves that didn’t come close to tempting Polanco in the first (the next pitch was a cutter that would have been above a giraffe’s strike zone), the pitch was rarely seen the rest of the night. Farmer’s home run came off a sinker that didn’t sink, hanging right in his wheelhouse.

Down 6-0 by the time López was relieved by Brock Stewart, the game was mostly out of hand, though the Astros did get one of their few highlights when Stewart left a cutter hanging middle-middle that Yordan Alvarez deposited out near the Crawford boxes for a two-run homer. With a four-run lead, the Twins didn’t need to use Jhoan Duran in the ninth, but with an off day tomorrow and Duran’s last game coming back on Wednesday, it wasn’t a bad idea to give him a bit of low-leverage work. In any case, Duran didn’t have much work to do — eight pitches, mainly hard stuff low, was enough to make Houston’s loss official.

The series is now tied 1-1, but the Twins are in a better position than when the ALDS started. If you believe the Astros are, on paper, the stronger team — as I do, and ZiPS agrees — beating them in a three-game series is easier than beating them in a five-game one. And this time, the Twins have home field advantage. If the series gets back to Houston, I have to believe that López will get another start rather than the Twins turning to Bailey Ober in an elimination game.

Pablo López showed up at the start of the playoffs wearing a Johan Santana jersey. So far, his arm is cashing the checks his wardrobe writes.

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— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 3, 2023